great
service," he went on. "You have shown me an unsuspected, a dangerous
weakness in myself. At another time--and coming in another way, I
might have made a mess of my career--and of the things that have been
entrusted to me." A long pause, then he added, to himself rather than
to her, "I must look out for that. I must do something about it."

Jane turned toward him and settled herself in a resolute attitude and
with a resolute expression. "Victor," she said, "I've listened to you
very patiently. Now I want you to listen to me. What is the truth
about us? Why, that we are as if we had been made for each other. I
don't know as much as you do. I've led a much narrower life. I've
been absurdly mis-educated. But as soon as I saw you I felt that I had
found the man I was looking for. And I believe--I feel--I KNOW you
were drawn to me in the same way. Isn't that so?"

"You--fascinated me," confessed he. "You--or your clothes--or your
perfume."

"Explain it as you like," said she. "The fact remains that we were
drawn together. Well--Victor, _I_ am not afraid to face the future, as
fate maps it out for us. Are you?"

He did not answer.

"You--AFRAID," she went on. "No--you couldn't be afraid."

A long silence. Then he said abruptly: "IF we loved each other. But
I know that we don't. I know that you would hate me when you realized
that you couldn't move me. And I know that I should soon get over the
infatuation for you. As soon as it became a question of
sympathies--common tastes--congeniality--I'd find you hopelessly
lacking."

She felt that he was contrasting her with some one else--with a certain
some one. And she veiled her eyes to hide their blazing jealousy. A
movement on his part made her raise them in sudden alarm. He had
risen. His expression told her that the battle was lost--for the day.
Never had she loved him as at that moment, and never had longing to
possess him so dominated her willful, self-indulgent, spoiled nature.
Yet she hated him, too; she longed to crush him, to make him suffer--to
repay him with interest for the suffering he was inflicting upon
her--the humiliation. But she dared not show her feelings. It would
be idle to try upon this man any of the coquetries indicated for such
cases--to dismiss him coldly, or to make an appeal through an
exhibition of weakness or reckless passion.

"You will see the truth, for yourself, as you think things over," said
he.

S